Graceful Sermons

Saturday, March 03, 2018

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.2 He drew me up from the desolate pit,[a]
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.

4 Happy are those who make
the Lord
their trust,
who do not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after false gods.5 You have multiplied, O Lord
my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you.
Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
they would be more than can be counted.

6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.[b]
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.7 Then I said, “Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.[c]8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”

9 I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.10 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.

11 Do not, O Lord,
withhold
your mercy from me;
let your steadfast love and your faithfulness
keep me safe forever.12 For evils have encompassed me
without number;
my iniquities have overtaken me,
until I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails me.

13 Be pleased, O Lord,
to deliver me;
O Lord,
make haste to help me.14 Let all those be put to shame and confusion
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire my hurt.15 Let those be appalled because of their shame
who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the Lord!”17 As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God.

How
do you pray?

How
do you pray?

By
that I mean, what is your mood when you pray to the Lord?

Well,
hold that thought for a minute.Before we
talk about prayer, let me ask you about your school days.

How
did you – or do you - study?

What
mood were you in when you approached tests?

When
I was in high school there was one kid, Tommy, who knew every answer to every
question ever asked by teacher or test.If a test was on Friday, he would not have to study at all, because his
whole life was filled with academic pursuits, and when his test grade came
back, he would receive his "A" with the mundane feeling that life
never changes.He approached every test
with confidence, grace, and ease.

Then there was Chuck, who struggled and
studied and agonized over every test.If
a test was on Friday, he started studying on Monday -- TWO Weeks before the
test, and when he got his grade, which was always a "C", he was
always thankful.Chuck approached every
test with concern, carefulness and patience flavored with mild anxiety.

Then
there was this other fellow, whose name I will not repeat.If a test was on Friday at high noon, he
would not think about it until he walked into the classroom and would say with
a panic, "Test?There's a Test
today?"

And he would rush to his desk and open his
book and spend the next 45 to 55 seconds to study for the test.

And when he received his usual
"D" his response would be, "Wow, I passed!"

In your school days, how did you study?

We study in different ways, and it just so
happens that also pray in different ways.

Some pray like Tommy studied -- with
confidence, grace, and ease.

Some pray like Chuck studied -- with
concern, carefulness and patience flavored with mild anxiety.

Others are like that other nameless person
in my high school.They pray with
breathlessness and a pleading for quick mercy.

In our reading from the Psalms, we read
such a prayer that may well have been prayed by that nameless student in my
high school as he yanked open the text book to study in the few remaining
minutes before the test.

12For
troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot
see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.

13Be
pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.

Such a prayer is seen many times in the
psalter.In Psalm 70, the psalmist
prays,

1Hasten,
O God, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.

2May
those who seek my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my
ruin be turned back in disgrace.

3May
those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!" turn back because of their shame.

5Yet
I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my
deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.

(NIV)

This
is the kind of prayer that a lot of people pray.

Last
minute prayer.

Panic-button
prayer.

O
God, help me, help me, Aha Aha.

Most
of us probably pray that prayer at some point in our lives.

Word circulates through the office that
someone is going to be fired, and just as you are settling into your desk, the
boss calls you into his office.

O
LORD, come quickly to help me.

You go out to the
mail box and instead of greeting cards and letters from old friends, your
credit card bill tells you your limit has been reached, the bank has notified
you of a bounched check, and your power bill is twice what it usually is.

O
LORD, come quickly to help me.

The telephone rings, and a policeman
informs you there has been an accident.Your son is being rushed to emergency surgery.

O
LORD, come quickly to help me.

Some of us live our lives in a state free
of any preparation, and some of us carefully and deliberately prepare and plan
for every move.But all of us sometimes
pray the prayer that has had no preparation for the crisis of the moment, all
of us sometimes pray the gut-wrenching prayer of Psalm 40, Be pleased, O
LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.

Now
the interesting thing about this prayer is that this is not the way the psalm
begins.Rather than the anxiety filled, Be
pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me, we find a
more sedate, patient prayer of calmness.

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned
to me and heard my cry.

In my high school, there was always one
student who never panicked when walking into a classroom to find there was a
test that day.What others would have
seen as a crisis of an academic career, this student would have seen as just
one more very natural part of the day, nothing to get excited about.

And for some, this is the approach that is
taken in prayer.

I heard someone tell a story once about a
church he'd grown up in.

Every Wednesday night, this elder, Mr
McElroy, would stand and give the prayer.The man who told me this story says the elder died at age 104.

Elder McElroy would stand and pray from
his place in the pew and he would grab the pew in front of him, holding on with
ancient, leathery hands.He'd been a
farmer most of his life.

His prayer would always be something like,
"Oh Lord, we need rain.You know
that it has not rained since June and we need rain.We need it bad.But we wait.And we trust."

There was a story that was told at this
man's funeral that on the night when Orson Wells gave the broadcast about War
of the Worlds, a war that -- during the broadcast --many believed was really
happening.Someone burst into the church
while a Prayer service was going on and said, "The Martians have landed!
They're invading."

Strange
call to worship!To which Elder McElroy
is said to have replied, "If it is true, then what better place to be than
in a house of prayer."

"I
waited patiently for the Lord."

Your
business becomes more and more difficult, you spend more and more time and
energy at it, but to no avail. The inevitable can be easily seen.It may be a day or a month away, but the
business cannot last long, and you will have to look for a new job.But in the midst of this slow growing crisis,
there is a gentle patience.And slowly,
things begin to turn around, and hope is restored.

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned
to me and heard my cry.

For months you feel the overwhelming
burden of finances that seem beyond control.Credit card bills you cannot pay, Utility bills that you cannot reduce,
a check book you cannot balance.But you
work, and struggle, and month by month, things get slowly better.

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned
to me and heard my cry.

You rush to the hospital to find a loved
one in the emergency room.In an
unexpected instant, the lifestyle of your family has changed.Medication and therapy becomes the keystone
of your family's daily routine.As
months and years go by, the family stays together in the living through this
crisis.And through it all, the quiet
prayer...

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned
to me and heard my cry.

I find it so interesting that in this one
single psalm, you find both extremes of these voices of prayer.The psalm that begins, I waited patiently
for the LORD;ends with the anxiety
filled, "Help me -- come quickly to my aid."

A few years ago, while serving another
congregation, I was approached by a parishioner.She had 3 sons.The first was about to enter college and his
mother, an elder in my church, came to me to inquire about scholarship
possibilities from the Presbyterian Church.During our discussion, I asked her how much she'd managed to save in
preparation for this event, and she said, $250.Well let's see, in today's world that buys one chemistry book and 16
paper clips.

Her prayer is found in the end of the
Psalm, "Oh God come quickly to my aid."

I
remember visiting with an elder in the hospital.His body was full of cancer.I met with him as he was about to be taken
into surgery and he said to me, "You know, the doctors tell me that after
this surgery, there might not be a John Thompson anymore.But I told those doctors I was not concerned.I know the Savior I have served."

His
prayer is found at the opening of this Psalm, "I waited patiently on the
Lord."

There was another time I was in the
hospital.Just passing through, leaving
a room, I was on my way to the parking lot and in that particular hospital, the
walk would take me by the emergency room and I developed the habit of looking
in the ER lobby.And I noticed a
parishioner.

Her husband had been rushed to the
hospital with a heart attack.They were
working on him now.It was so
sudden.He was so healthy.We had no idea.There was a pain in his chest, he fell to the
ground.

Her prayer was not the knarled hands of a
farmer like Elder McElroy praying patiently for rain, but the wringing of hands
in lonely desperation, Oh God.Oh
God.Come quickly.I need you NOW.

Psalm 40 is a great psalm to present these
two voices of prayer and to affirm both as valid prayers.There are times when we pray, that we pray
with a heart full of patience; and there are times when we pray that we pray
with a stomach that is churning with fear.

What matters most
is not what kind of voice we have in prayer, but what matters is that voice our
prayers.

What matters is
that we pray, and that we speak with an honesty to the God who hears either
prayer.

In the heart of Psalm 40, there is a
benediction.A blessing.

After the quiet prayer of "I waited
patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry;"

And before the psalmist begins the anxiety
filled prayer of"O LORD, to
save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me;"

Comes this blessing found in verse 4...

Blessed is the one who trusts the LORD.

This is the voice of God in our prayers.

Your prayer may be
lifted up in your most anxiety filled voice, or the voice of patience and calm.
You may speak with the voice of doubt, or
in the voice of deep faith.

What matters is that
you voice your prayers, and that you listen to the voice of God in this Psalm:

Blessed is the one who trusts the LORD.

And now unto
God the Father,

God the Son,

And God the
Holy Spirit be ascribed all might, power, dominion and glory, today and
forever, Amen.

Copyright 2018.

Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh

All rights reserved

Ministers may feel free to use some or all of this sermon in
their own ministries as long as they do not publish in print or on the Internet
without ascribing credit to the author.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

But we do not want you to be uninformed,
brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as
others do who have no hope. 14 For since
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will
bring with him those who have died. 15 For
this we declare to you by the word of the Lord

My wife texted me the other day while she was at
school.One of her friends wanted to
borrow anything we might have about pirates.Hats, necklaces, toy swords, and such.I figured someone was having a party, but no, they were planning a
funeral.They wanted everyone to come
dressed like pirates.

In the past several years I have seen a growing discomfort
with death.

It has always been with us, of course.Woody Allen once said that he wasn’t afraid of
death, he just didn’t want to be there when it happened to him.

We hesitate to say that someone has “died.”So instead we began saying things like “passed
away.”Lately we don’t even say that, we
say, “he passed.”

Several times people have told me that someone has
passed and my first thought, literally and honestly, is to think “Good, what
kind of test did he pass?The Bar
Examination?The Drivers License test?”

Even the way we speak of funerals has been
softened.We used to gather together
when people passed – or died, and have what was called a funeral.Funerals are often called “celebrations of
life.”

Now on one hand it is good to have to encourage the
sharing of good memories and I’m all for laughter at any occasion.But we are more and more going to the extreme
of disguising the purpose of these post-death gatherings.But more and more this term “celebration of
life” has become synonymous with a party, not a worship service.

I walked into one such Celebration of Life recently
and there was a sign at the entrance, “No grieving allowed.”Below that it said, “This is not a funeral
but a celebration and laughter is encouraged.Anyone shedding tears will be asked to leave.”

But here’s the thing.

You cannot live your life without death or grief or
pain or hardship.

One of the most beautiful arias in opera comes from
Pagliacci.A clown has learned tragic
news that hurts him to the core, but he is a clown and cannot allow himself to
grieve.So he sings this song, “Turn
your distress and tears into jest, your pain and sobbing into a funny face, Ha!Laugh clown at your broken love!Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!

Each one of us is going to die.Each one of us will have many, many beloved
friends and family members die.

The secret that most people don’t know about living life,
is that death will happen and it is OK to grieve.

Ernest Becker wrote a book back in 1973, The
Denial of Death.It was a profound book
that claimed that people are too terrified of death to face it.

American writer William Saroyan said shortly before
his own death in 1981, “Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an
exception would be made in my case.”

In the place of an awareness of death, we nurture
what one person has called, “a flippant air of invincibility that only gives a
second thought to our mortality for the briefest of seasons when tragedy
strikes.” (“Overcoming the Denial of Death” Matt Reagan, July 7, 2012 article
in Desiring God).

In the book, Becker asserts, "To live
fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies
everything."

Are we really so naive that we will, like a
child playing hide-and-seek, place our hands over our eyes and convince
ourselves that death is no longer there? If we want to live, we need to face
the reality that everyone of us will die.

Death is both inevitable and terrifying, and
denying it will accomplish nothing but emotional shallowness.

On the other hand, knowing that you will die
liberates you.Accepting that you will
die, enhances your life.

Early
in my ministry, in fact it was while I was still in seminary, a professor sent
me to the nursing home to visit some shut-ins there.It was part of a class I was taking on
ministry to the elderly.I got to know
one of the shut-ins pretty well.Mentally, he was pretty alert, and we had a number of
conversations.Finally one day, I asked
him, as one 23 year old to someone who was, in my mind, incredibly ancient,
“What is it like to be old?”

It’s
the kind of question only a very young person would ask.

He
thought for a minute and said, “I now view everything in life from the point of
view of my death.”

Without
thinking, I pitied him and said, “How sad.”

“Not at
all,” said the old man.“We are all
dieing, but for most people, death is a secret.People hide if from themselves.But I know the secret.I know I’m
going to die.And that helps me to
treasure life, and to enjoy it.Even
here in a nursing home.”

I have
remembered that man’s words for a long time now.And I think he’s onto something.There is something very liberating about
knowing that we are all dieing.

Garrison
Keeler is a radio personality who is heard each week on Public Radio’s Prairie
Home Companion.He’s a story teller and
in one recent show he told this story.

A man
was tilling manure into a field in the Spring, using a tractor and a disc
plow.

It was a long field.The tractor was moving at five miles an hour,
and the man was bored.It was a warm day
and the man wished he could be anything other than a farmer.He was tired of working for his father.Out of sheer boredom, he dozed off and
started to fall backwards off the tractor seat.

He woke up falling and,
because the tractor was an old model with the throttle lever that was notched
into place, the tractor just kept moving.The man fell in between the tractor and the discs and, as he hit the
ground, he grabbed on to the tow bar.He
hauled himself up as far as he could, but he couldn’t pull himself all the way
up.He just hung onto the tow bar with
both hands as the steel discs were moving behind him.

His body was literally
being dragged through the dirt and the manure.He held on as tightly as he could because, if he lost his grip, he would
have been cut in two by the moving discs.

He was just about to lose
his grip.He didn’t even have enough
strength to cry out or to weep – he just kept hanging on.

The tractor kept moving,
ever so slowly, until it came to the end of the field.It began moving up the incline of a hill, and
then into the woods.

Finally it hit a tree and
stopped, although the wheels kept spinning.

It took him about ten
minutes before he could stand on his two feet, climb up into the seat, and turn
off the engine.

That man lost his life
and got it back again.

As Garrison Keeler told
this story, he made the observation that he would think that after an
experience like that you would have the feeling of absolute freedom and
liberty.All the weight would be gone.
You would feel the sort of liberty that you read about in the Epistles when a
person has died and has been reborn.

The sunsets are lovelier.

The friendships are
richer.

Life is savored more
deeply.

The gift of Ash Wednesday
is that we come forward and have ashes placed on our head, and as each person stands
before the pastor he or she hears the words, “You are dust, and to dust you
will return.”

All of us are on a
journey toward death.

Death is hard, it is not
easy. Denying its reality does not make
it easier.Grief his difficult, and you
cannot rush it.

I mentioned a few moments
ago that I once went to one of those funerals that was billed as “A Celebration
of Life.”At the entrance was a sign
that read, “No grieving allowed.”

But it is fine to
grieve.Jesus, himself, attended the
funeral of his friend Lazarus, and even though he knew that he was about to
bring Lazarus from the dead, he cried.It is the shortest verse of the Bible: “Jesus wept.”

But allowing grief and
acknowledging sadness and pain is not the same as giving up hope.

St. Paul wrote in 1
Thessalonians, “But we do not want you to be uninformed,
brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as
others do who have no hope. 14 For since
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will
bring with him those who have died.”

Later, when death was no
longer an abstract of some distant future, but close at hand, Paul wrote the
Philippians while in prison, saying, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will
have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my
body, whether by life or by death.”

Having hope is not the
same as being in denial.Having hope is
what Christians do in the face of reality.

It is fine for us to fear
death – that is a human thing for us to do.

It is fine for us to
grieve – to lose someone dear to us is not something that should be
painless.

But in the midst of our
fear and in the struggle with our tears, “What shall we say about these
things?If God is for us, who is against us?”That question was asked by Paul in the New Testament
book of Romans, and in that question he continued to ask questions, “Who will
separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

“… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will
be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”